New Wave Car Wash: Worlds
New Wave Car Wash: Worlds
Active: June 2024 - Present
Location: New Wave Car Wash, Chicago, IL
We were approached by a man who wanted to revolutionize the experience of getting a car wash. He had been an owner of an automated car wash for 18 years, and was looking to re-vamp his business and create a totally new experience.
We worked closely with him to design and fabricate the most Immersive Car wash in the World.
Our creative process started with understanding the brand’s core values and aspirations. Their slogan is: “Drive Clean, Feel Good.” They want customers to leave feeling energized, positively refreshed, and ready to take on the rest of their day.
How could we enhance this narrative with custom LED installations?
We looked at three pivotal moments of the car wash - the prep room, the car wash itself, and the drying area.
The prep room was a blank canvas for us. 40 seconds where a car sits in an empty room and is prepped by an attendant before entering the wash. This became the main focus for our experience. We ended up covering 3 of the 4 walls of the prep room in a floor to ceiling LED Mesh - made up of over 15,000 LEDs and spanning 600 square feet.
We then designed five audiovisual “worlds,” that customers could pick from to experience in this room.
After this show comes the traditional automated car wash, filled with water, soap, giant spinning mops, and industrial air driers.
We looked to enhance this experience as well, and ended up focusing on activating 11 metal arches that support the hardware that is used to clean the cars.
We framed the outline of each of these arches with waterproof LED bars. Each car is bathed in an immersive lighting experience made up of over 300 feet of LEDs as they move through the wash. To top it off, we added handpan drum music to be played in the car wash tunnel, which is known for its soothing and uplifting vibe.
See a video of this installation here.
Finally, we looked at the outdoor parking lot, where customers are able to vacuum the interior of their cars after the wash. The first thing we noticed when looking at this area was the metal structure that was above the parking area that distributed the air from a single source.
This became our canvas. We wanted to really hit home on the brand, which was called “New Wave Car Wash.” We came up with an installation that ran 120 foot length of this metal structure.
It was a series of 2 cascading waves, made up of 100x 4’ tall LED Icicles. Icicles are a custom form of LED bar designed to have a 360 degree viewing angle and light diffusion.
Check out “Helix,” the installation that lives in this area now.
This is a true public art installation, and can be seen by thousands of people who drive by the car wash on the adjacent Main Street in the suburbs of Chicago, every day.